


Home Is Where the Smoothies Are

by Silybum



Series: On the dangers of brain freeze [1]
Category: Ben 10 Series
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ben 10: Omniverse, Crack Treated Seriously, F/M, Gen, Not Beta Read, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-07-04 01:09:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 9,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15830634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silybum/pseuds/Silybum
Summary: Between roads not taken and posibilities not shown, it's important to know how to find your way back home.(Hello, yes, this is a collection of AU-ish ficlets.)





	1. Two roads diverged in a wood, and I

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Español available: [Hogar es donde están los Smoothies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19287277) by [KarasuShiro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarasuShiro/pseuds/KarasuShiro)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben goes to college. Seriously, he does.

Ben does go to college, after all. Admittedly, not to Gwen’s college, although that had been his first plan (had been what he wanted), but... Gwen had said she wanted a normal college life, and wherever Ben went, trouble was sure to follow. Besides, there really isn’t a career on Earth that will be of much use in his line of work. So, he goes to a new program dedicated to the formation of future interplanetary diplomats. And Ben has never seen or thought of himself as one, but (and this he has had to learn) there’ll be times when he’s expected to play such role, when he will have no other option but to do so, and, should he play it poorly, the consequences finally might be ones he cannot stop or fix.

The thing about fame is this: he’s expected to do _things_ , things beyond rushing in and saving people and arresting the bad guys, which has always been his definition of hero; which has always been what he tries to do.

So, he is far away from Gwen and Kevin and Bellwood, and pretty much everyone he knows, but he’s in college. At least Grandpa Max managed to get Rook assigned into the nearest Plumber Station, that way they can still be partners and go to missions together, whenever Ben has the chance. He’s also not alone, not all alone, at least.

They’ve been brothers in arms for two years, and Ben isn’t sure he can let Rook go. Rook’s a friend now, someone who has had to experience the best and the worst of him, as a person, as a plumber, as a hero. Ben’s ready to kick up a fuss if someone tries to separate them; he needs some stability in his life, now more than ever. And it’s like he hasn’t been selfish all his life, it’s not like anybody will be surprised.

Unless —or rather, _until_ — Rook himself makes his choice. Ben is no longer a child, almost no longer a teenager; he understands that the life he has chosen for himself is not for everyone. It’s not for forever. He should know; after all, he had thought that Gwen and Kevin would never leave him.

And one day, Rook will want out, will want to leave all of this behind for something else. He’ll want to move onto something bigger and better, or else something quieter and less life-threatening. And there’s no way that Ben can deny him that after all he has done.

He’ll want his own team, or maybe he’ll want to go back to Revonnah with his family and settle down, to live a happy life of his own. A taste of what they have been saving, have saved, so many times, as Gwen had said, so long ago. Maybe he’ll just get tired of being his babysitter; of his antics and flaws (although Ben likes to think he has been getting better). One way or another, that parting will come and Ben wants to be prepared for that (though he already is, more than he would like to admit), wants to enjoy whatever time they might have left.

He’s not a child anymore, but sometimes he wonders how long he ever was; the Omnitrix doesn’t care about age, and what he was when he decided to use it again has very little to do with childhood. He calls himself a hero but he knows what he is; the words simply do not sit well with him.

But for now, he goes to college; he learns everything he thinks might be useful later. He takes an extra-curricular alien cuisine class, just in case, of his own volition; and it is not with little relief that he discovers that, among the future diplomats, he’s not the only one with a queasy stomach.

Ben goes to college, balances classes with heroics, even takes a part-time job to afford his calls to Earth. He learns, waits, and hopes for the best. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I shall be telling this with a sigh  
> Somewhere ages and ages hence:  
> Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—  
> I took the one less traveled by,  
> And that has made all the difference.  
> Robert Frost, “The Road Not Taken”
> 
> Boy, I sure wish I could justify the existence of this project with something a little more substantial than "it seemed like a good idea at the time", but here we are. I finally scavenged this from the dead sea of my WIPs.
> 
> Also, I have no beta, so please, please, let me know if you find something wrong.


	2. I love this cultured hell that tests my youth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, you just have to learn to live with the mistakes you make. Yeah, even the really dumb ones.

The first fifteen minutes, the two of them sat there, not quite sure of what they were watching. Ben thought it was some sort of acid-dream-nightmare sequence that the main character was having, and that it would end in any moment so the actual movie could begin, but, alas, no. By the 30-minute mark, they had been sitting in horrified silence, unable to tear their eyes off the screen, like it was some sort of deranged car wreck.

They actually managed to sit halfway through the thing-that-actually-couldn’t-possibly-be-considered-a-movie, before Ben’s face turned green, well, greener (Rook would have showed concern but he had had his eyes closed for a while now), made an urk-ing sound and grabbed his partner’s wrist in a death grip, before hissing:

“Dude, dude, I can’t—can we just leave?”

And Rock stood up quickly enough to make himself dizzy, and pretty much ran out of the theatre dragging Ben with him.  
Once in the safety of the Proto-Truck, Ben started rambling.

“What—what—what even was that? There’s no way they can be showing that kind of thing on a family theatre. Dude! What was that supposed to even be? It was like—it was—sick. I’m going to be sick. Seriously, what the hell was that?”

“I do not know what it was, but I will be seeing it in my nightmares,” Rook’s voice came out muffled, since he had opted to cover his entire face with his hands.

“Why did we think it was a good idea to watch that thing?”

“We did not. The ticket-seller recommended it to us.”

“Aw, man!” Ben threw his arms in the air in an exaggerated gesture. Rook didn’t even need to uncover his face to know the kind of face he was doing. “That explains why we were the only ones in there! Alright, Rook, wait here. I’m going back to give him a piece of my mind—”

“Please, do not do that.”

“Why not?! I didn’t even get to eat my popcorn! don’t think I’ll be getting any sleep tonight! Maybe ever!”

“I believe you are exaggerating, Ben,” he said, finally lifting his face enough to allow one eye to peek at his partner. “Probably.”

Ben crossed his arms and stuck out his tongue at Rook.

“Fine, we’re not getting any sleep tonight. Happy now?”

“Not in the slightest.”

“You and me both, buddy.”

As a sort of last resort, the two of them ended up calling Magister Tennyson, all but begging to be given the night-shift patrol. And after that, they valiantly tried to take the first morning-shift, but by the time the sun started to rise, both of them fell into an exhausted slumber still in Rook’s truck. At least the young plumber had the good sense to park his vehicle in an alley.

(And if Ben woke up screaming, startling Rook into shooting his Proto-Tool at the ceiling of his own truck, there was no reason to mention that in the report. Really, there wasn’t.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Although she feed me bread of bitterness,  
> And sinks into my throat her tiger's tooth,  
> Stealing my breath of life, I will confess  
> I love this cultured hell that tests my youth.  
> Claude McKay, “America”
> 
> Story time! So, this chapter (it's bad, I know) exists solely because Ben 10 has the dubious honor of having made me read a fic that was terrible enough to inspire it. I think I read like 10 chapters in some sort of masochistic stupor still waiting for the actual story to start. And here we are. No, seriously, that's like half the reason I decided to write this entire collection.


	3. And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is an information war going on, Ben's best allies are his parents, and he learns to navigate his interpersonal relationships and the ghosts of both dinners past and yet to come. Or something like that.

Eventually, sometime between his first visit to Revonnah and realizing that Rook knows far too much about him that anyone but Ben himself has any right to, it occurs to Ben that Rook might be lonely. Homesick, even.

If you’ll excuse him for stating the obvious, Earth is very different from Revonnah, and humans are very, very different from Revonnahganders. Honestly, if he wasn’t so used to aliens invading the planet, Ben would be very impressed that Rook’s adapting so well. But the point remains: Rook’s the only Revonnahgander Plumber that he’s aware of, he doesn’t seem to hang out with anyone else other than Grandpa Max, Kevin, whenever he’s in town, and Ben himself and, he might as well get this out of the way, Ben wasn’t exactly the most welcoming person when they were first assigned to work together. He knows, okay? He _knows_. He’d like to say he apologized about that, but he’d be lying.

Still, there are lots of thing he doesn’t know about his partner. Which is kind of unfair, nobody gave _him_ a super comprehensive file about Rook, he has absolutely no way of knowing the kind of embarrassing stuff that someone thought would be okay cramming into his file and there’s no way in hell he’s going to ask him about any distinctive birth marks he might have.

(Speaking of which, Ben would very much like to know who wrote his file—just to have a very nice, polite chat with them and maybe clarify that there’s a very noticeable line, a big freaking Wall of China, between gathering information and downright stalking someone and then writing down their creepy findings and thinking it’s A-Okay to let anyone have access to that sort of personal, very personal, information.

Unless it was Grandpa Max. In which case, what the _frig_ , Grandpa Max?)

He’s just met Rook’s family, after never even bothering to ask him if he had any family at all, and that’s kind of a wakeup call. He doesn’t know how old is he, what is his favorite movie genre, the subject he hated the most while he studied at the Plumber Academy, all little things, but they are nonetheless important. Ben’s not above wheedling Rook into a game of twenty questions, but he’s also not sure there are any questions Rook can ask that he hasn’t read the answer of in that damned file of his.

Ben kind of has resigned himself to that stalemate when the solution presents itself from where he least expects it.

It happens like this: it’s late, it’s been a long, tiring day of chasing idiots all over Undertown, and he’s starving. He’s also pretty sure Rook is too, so he thinks nothing of inviting him to his home to have dinner with his family, under the excuse that it’s about time they meet Gwen and Kevin’s replacement. The last part isn’t even a lie, his parents have been asking to meet Rook from the moment he mentioned he had a new partner. But hey, they’re his parents, and it’s kind of expected that they worry about who is supposed to save his only son from dying in a horrible intergalactic incident or something. Grandpa Max hasn’t been exactly reassuring about his work.

Ben’s not expecting much, least of all Rook actually enjoying his mom’s cooking, although it makes sense, given his opinion on Granpa Max’s cooking; but then, he should have known better. His parents are very welcoming and pleasant, with the kind of rusty politeness that makes obvious the toll their son’s living has had in their social life.

Still, they play the part, make small talk and his mom serves everyone her latest healthy experiment and told them to _dig in!_ and Ben and his dad can only watch in horror as Rook does just that. He’s still chewing that first bite when Sandra Tennyson smiles sweet as sugar, which makes Ben instantly sit straighter in his seat and shovel a spoonful of whatever it’s in his plate into his mouth, and starts interrogating Rook like she suspects he has a hidden stash of illegal substances in his pants. The ensuing back and forth is as enlightening as terrifying, and he can’t help but send some desperate looks at his dad asking for help, but those go all but ignored since his dad is suddenly very busy staring starry eyed at his wife.

So Ben gives up and opts to listen as attentively as he can while pretending to eat as little as he can get away with before shoving the entire contents of his plate into Rook’s at the first given opportunity. He’s not about to start his own Rook file, but there’s no harm in setting a few reminders on his phone, or writing down some things. Later, when Rook leaves and his parents are otherwise occupied and Ben is in the privacy of his bedroom; no one has to know.

The invitations to _come over and save me from my mom’s cooking_ become increasingly common after that. Ben’s parents seem happy for him; for Ben, he means. He can’t remember the last time he had someone over that wasn’t related to him, or dating someone related to him, and he supposes it’s a relief for them to know that there are some aspects in his life he gets to be normal. Or as normal as he can be. What with Rook being an alien and all that.

His parents are always happy to have Rook visit, for however long he can stay; his mom absolutely adores having someone around that appreciates her cooking and his dad enjoys having someone to rant about his favorite sport team or, more rarely, talk about Grandpa Max exploits as a Plumber. And in between, little snippets of information manage to make their way into Ben’s totally-not-a-file growing collection of facts about Rook.

It’s in this way that Ben also learns that there’s plenty of things Rook doesn’t know about him, file or no file. Things he’s thankful he gets to keep for himself, and also things he’s not so thankful about having to explain whenever his past rears its ugly head and threatens to take a big bite of his present with its ugly teeth.

Ben knows what having the Omnitrix makes him. He’s more and less than a Plumber in the same way that he’s more and less than human.

When he was ten, he learned (the hard way) that being a hero wasn’t as easy or glamorous as he believed. When he was fifteen, he learned (the hard way, followed by the harder way) that when he put on the watch he had made a choice he couldn’t take back, that opening that particular door meant slamming closed all the others, locking them and throwing away the keys. When he was sixteen, he had the chance to erase all the evils of the universe and learned to fear what he could become.

“ _There’s a line_ ”, Julie said. Every day, he reminds himself that he can’t let himself cross it.

He knows, okay? Even as a child, he knew; it’s why he had tried to give up the Omnitrix even though it _felt_ like he was giving up one of his arms.

He also knows that he would make that choice over and over again, that he wouldn’t have his life any other way.

He’s still sixteen (soon to be seventeen, but not yet). He’s still learning.

Contrary to what Gwen might think (or not, his cousin likes to tease him but she’s surprisingly perceptive), Ben enjoys learning. It’s one of the things that has kept him alive, after all. Whether it is how to effectively use the powers of the latest alien the Omnitrix turned him into or Rook’s favorite color, Ben commits the knowledge to memory and waits for the opportunity to use it.

Rook coming over for a ‘celebratory dinner’ after a day of work becomes the norm and his parents are ecstatic. They actually like Rook and the feeling seems to be mutual, and they seem to worry a bit less about Ben, like he’s a miraculous cure for his aloofness regarding most of his fellow human and the very real possibility of losing him. Even Gwen and Kevin seem relieved whenever their paths cross. And Rook seems happier now, and they always have something to talk about, their latest mission, recipes his mom should try, how Rook’s family is doing; it becomes easy to talk about anything and everything. It’s suddenly not hard at all to ask about distinctive birthmarks, even if Rook ends up talking about distinctive patterns in his _fur_.

Ben thinks this might be what having friends feels like.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We were very tired, we were very merry—  
> We had gone back and forth all night on the ferry;   
> And you ate an apple, and I ate a pear,  
> From a dozen of each we had bought somewhere;  
> And the sky went wan, and the wind came cold,  
> And the sun rose dripping, a bucketful of gold.  
> Edna St. Vincent Millay, “Recuerdo”
> 
> Uhh, so this is set somewhere in the first season, I guess. I don't remember Ben having any friends outside of his circle of alien-related allies and family, so I took the idea and ran with it. 
> 
> As you can probably tell, this chapter sort of got away from me, but self-aware, self-made child-soldier Ben is my favorite Ben.


	4. You are a brave and special person

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben Ten inspires him to aspire for something more; as the first of his species to become a Plumber and become the partner of his hero, he hopes to make a difference. And he does! But this is a game of snakes and ladders, you know?

In reality, Scout should have gone back to Anur Transyl; should have done something (however small or insignificant the act) to help his home planet, because that is what Ben Tennyson, new hero of the galaxy, would do: the right thing. No matter how hard it seemed to be. But when his roommate chose to decline the offer to become Ben Tennyson’s partner in favor of going back home, to his family, and they offered him the position…

Well, really, there was no way he’d turn it down.

One thing that helps him (that will help him even much, much later) is the fact that he never had any interest in watching Hokstar’s TV show based on his hero; or on watching any show at all, but that will change. Scout is not interested in embellished stories bordering on outright lies about the scrawny boy he is introduced to.

For his part, Ben is static, in that weird way of his, at the very idea of working with an actual alien werewolf (“Loboan, actually”, he says, and knows instinctively that it won’t be the last time he has to remind him); but Scout takes it all in stride as is infinitely patient with the boy he can’t help but see as a pup. Sometimes he can’t trust Ben to take care of himself, let alone believe he saved the universe (“like a million times—at least!”), despite the overwhelming evidence of the contrary.

 It takes him weeks of movie marathons to admit that _yes, Ben, I can see how you would think I resemble a werewolf_ ; and by then he’s also comfortable enough to question his partners particular view on monsters (who very much resemble his home planet inhabitants and which fail to inspire terror in the boy, unlike clowns). He tries to explain how perspective affects them, and, finding that words fail to express what he wants, Ben just puts another movie. This one is vastly different from the ones they’ve watched so far; this one is cruelty and greed and misery and every terrible thing Scout can think of, so he just watches and waits for his partner to say something. It isn’t a monster movie; there is nothing but humans on the screen, but…

(“Monsters are cool,” Ben says, with his voice ringing a little hollow in the dark room, through the wrenching cries of a girl on the screen. “Just by looking at them, you know, you expect them to be the bad guys, but sometimes, despite how different they are, they turn out to be the heroes of the movie. Humans, though—man, it’s not so easy to tell who the monsters are among humans.”)

When they get a distress signal from Revonnah, Scout thinks of his roommate for the first time in a long, long while. So of course they go. Rather, he volunteers to go, so of course Ben chooses to tag along.

Rook Blonko, his Revonnahgander roommate, the first of his class, graduating with honors, was the best among them all: a blazing star with unlimited potential. Nonetheless, he chose to remain stationed at his home planet, where he could be near his family, where the most dangerous thing that would happen was to have oversized rodents try to steal their crops. And Scout can already see the effects of such decision, Rook might be content here, where can be with his kin, without having to worry about the rest of the universe, but that will never make him happy. Not like he was as a hopeful and ambitious young recruit back at the Plumber academy. It’s like someone had put a lid on the brilliance he used to carry about himself, suffocating a fire meant to burn bright. Here in Revonnah, Rook’s blazing nova will be reduced to a flickering flame, sputtering until it extinguishes.

And Scout will have the grace to feel bad about it later, but at that moment all he can think of is _I could have been you_.

With guilt heavy in his heart, he thinks, _I’m glad I’m not._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (a) You are a brave and special person. (b)  
> There are far too many people in the world  
> For this to still matter for very long.  
> James Merrill, “Family Week at Oracle Ranch”
> 
> And we're back to the AUs. If the chapter summary fooled you for a second into thinking this was a Rook-centric chapter, then it did its job. 
> 
> (I realy, really like this poem; it's so awful.)


	5. The waves which have kept me from reaching you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even fate can fail, so they fail to find each other regardless of how close they come and sometimes they don't come close at all.
> 
> (Or, five partners Rook never had plus one he kind of did.)

**I.**

Rook Blonko becomes a Plumber out of admiration for the wielder of the Omnitrix: the human Max Tennyson, quite possibly the best Plumber to ever have lived. Eventually, he is assigned to Earth and is able to (finally! at long last!) meet is hero. Eventually as well, he meets Max Tennyson’s grandson in disguise using a Plumber-issued ID mask (Max Tennyson has no problems at all with aliens of any kind, but he is an old school Plumber who believes humans are better off not knowing about them). He first sees Benjamin Tennyson playing soccer while attending a school match at Max’s instance; the boy is carefree and trusting, and there’s something about him that makes Rook wholeheartedly believe that he would make an outstanding Plumber, but Max is determined to not get his grandson involved with his line of work. He wants him to have a normal life, he doesn’t want him to be in constant danger, risking life and limb every day.

Perhaps he is right, but Rook can’t help but wonder _what if?_ , can’t help feeling that he missed out on something.

 

II.

It’s a tragedy, but then, Ben Tennyson’s life had been a tragedy waiting to happen from the moment he found the Omnitrix.

The very next day after Gwen Tennyson and Kevin Levin leave Bellwood, Rook Blonko is re-stationed to Earth and assigned as Ben Ten’s new partner. He arrives, however, too late. Not by much, mere minutes, perhaps, his body still warm, but it was enough—his body might still be warm, but not for long.

(And it might be selfish, but Rook can’t help but think it’s not fair. He was hours away from being formally introduced to one of the greatest heroes in the universe, from becoming his partner and doing something with his life.)

Dying a hero’s death, taking a bullet for a hostage—it’s not fair. So young, and cold, colder, _colder_ , _colder now_ ; so, so young. Human and frail. Gone.

_It’s not fair._

 

III.

There is peace now.

There is joyous peace in every corner of the universe on pain of death thanks to Ben Tennyson, savior of the universe, the one and true hero. No one is really sure how far his powers actually go, people only talk about him, about what he’s done, in hushed whispers, convinced he can hear them (and perhaps he can). ‘The Savior, ‘The Just One’, ‘The Templar’—these are his names now, no one calls him Ben Ten anymore, no one has for a very long time. These names are a curse coming from their mouths, but no one would dare to openly defy the wearer of the Omnitrix, Wielder of the Sword of Ascalon, Azmuth’s Knight.

That’s another name: Azmuth, brightest mind in five galaxies, the one who regrets. Or used to. It’s been a long time since anyone has heard of him. If Ben Tennyson is not keeping him and hasn’t disposed of him, then it’s very likely he has taken his own life. It’d be a cruel mercy, better than being lynched, in any case, but there is no atoning for something like Ben Tennyson.

There are, of course, places that have actually thrived thanks to this zero tolerance regimen, whole worlds filled with gratitude to their savior. Like Revonnah. Most of Revonnah, at least. The elders sing praises to this newly imposed peace and the younger generation, who knew farming and solidarity, begin to learn acceptance of something they have no control over and wish they could defy more openly, regardless of the benefits it offers.

It’s difficult to put in words. A youth there tries and fails to explain why it feels so wrong, what bothers him the most about this situation, but he has never left Revonnah, has never known anything beyond his simple life there (safety, boredom, an insatiable hunger for more). There never was a child hero to teach him what life could be if one dared.

 

IV.

Life in Revonnah is peaceful. Enough to make Rook feel he can’t breathe some days (most days), busy as he is repeating a routine that is expected of him for the rest of his life. Even the Muroids have become a distraction he’s thankful for. He wants more. Ever since he was a child he had dreamed of leaving his home planet. So, when he realizes that there are no other options, that there would be _no_ other options for him, he takes the first (the only) chance he gets. He changes his hair, his clothes, his way of speaking. He cannot bring himself to care about the shame he must have brought to his family. Not even when he and Fistrick get arrested on Earth by a blue-eyed, shape-shifting child and a group of questionable blue spots.

(It’s not love at first sight, not even attraction, not anything, really, but the color of those eyes stays with him for a long time.)

 

V.

This universe is one of the unlucky ones. History derails magnificently, and in some other universe this has happened before, in some other universe this has been dealt with, but not in this one. A tiny spark of evil catches fire, a hero burns from the inside until every bit of goodness in him is reduced to naught but ashes, until in his madness he seeks to destroy himself—all versions of himself.

Thus, Eon does not conquer this universe; he merely lays waste to it.

Of course, this universe includes Revonnah; Rook never even heard about what Ben was before becoming this.

 

VI.

Everyone knows the story: Gwen Tennyson found the Omnitrix when she was young and became the protector of planet Earth first, and then saved the universe from the Highbreed, and after that from the devourer of worlds. And when she decided to attend the Plumber Academy (she wasn’t able to graduate early, here, barely at all, busy as she was between handling threats, invasions and vying for acceptance), her cousin was unofficially passed the metaphorical baton for the protection of their hometown.

Rook had been told to get ready; he had been assigned to Earth, to Bellwood, as Ben Tennyson’s partner. He had been so excited; it would be the first time he would meet an Anodite.

But first, he meets Gwen, in another proverbial metaphorical baton-passing, and she asks him to take care of her dumb cousin for her, but something in her eyes is terribly off, it makes her look haunted, the tight smile on her face belongs to someone who is running away from something.

Well, he’s not entirely wrong. Gwen and Kevin never did recover from what happened to Ben—what Verdona did to him…

It ripped apart the Ben they knew and left something that looked like him and thought like _her_.

(He had thanked her, had told them _Gwen,_ _this is amazing_ , had failed to understand why Kevin had tried to kill their aunt.)

Rook knows nothing of this, knows nothing about the way Ben’s smile could light up an entire room, the way his mischievous nature and easy acceptance had endeared him to the aliens Gwen met. Unlike them, Rook will be able to look at him without wanting to cry; after all, one cannot miss what they don’t know they could have had.

And Ben (this new Ben) is nothing if not unfailingly polite and always eager to learn new things, he devours knowledge with a hunger Rook tries to admire but that makes him recoil instead; it’s far too much like he’s trying to fill a void inside him with whatever he can get his hands on.

Rook can’t run away, and he won’t, but he thinks he understands why Gwen couldn’t stay.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I trust the sanity of my vessel; and  
> if it sinks, it may well be in answer  
> to the reasoning of the eternal voices,  
> the waves which have kept me from reaching you.  
> Frank O'Hara, “To the Harbormaster”
> 
> Honestly, I wasn't so sure about this chapter because it's less "a chapter" a more like five drafts for the price of one. Sorry. I'm mostly shoving this thing at you because if I don't it's never going to see the light of day.
> 
> Favorite things about this chapter: getting to completely screw the characters in other universes, ha ha. (I'm 100% convinced Gwen-with-the-watch killed off the Highbreeds, you know.)


	6. Flashes up, deserved and pure.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ben has many flaws, but this isn't one of them.

One of the things Rook learns about Ben after becoming his partner (meaning that it was not mentioned in his file), is that he is rather fond of children. He entertains the thought that it is because Ben is rather immature himself, but he dismisses the notion almost too quickly to find any real amusement in it. After all, it’s not like that; it’s just that, being what he is, he finds it easier to be around children. They either like him or they don’t, and they are abrasively honest about it: either pestering him to transform or throwing things at him (sometimes after pestering to transform). At the very least, they don’t pretend to like him until he no longer can hear them before slandering him. It is, he finds, a relief to him, to not have to worry about that.

He enjoys spending time with the ones that like him, at least, be it his human fans, the children from Undertown who so often drag him into their games, or even the little ones from Revonnah, on the rare occasions Rook manages to visit his home planet.

Young One (now named after his hero) became attached to Ben since he first met him (the real Ben Tennyson, and not the Lenopan actor who used to go by that name), and it doesn’t take long for the other children to follow his example, thanks to Ben’s antics.

It is also thanks to the time he spends with them, ever since the last time that Ben attempted to help with the harvest and Rook Da banished the human from going near the fields, assigning him instead the task of looking after the children and keeping them, and himself, out of the way. Which, incidentally, is something he is actually good at.

The children take turns in picking an alien form for Ben to change to, with Bloxx being one of their favorites. In that form, Ben transforms into swings, see-saws and slides, much to their delight. Bloxx can be spaceships and fortresses and anything else they can think of.

The elders may act like they disapprove, but Rook knows it’s only to keep up appearances; they see how kind he is to them, and that’s enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Joy (word rusty with disuse)  
> Flashes up, deserved and pure.  
> James Merrill, “Family Week at Oracle Ranch”
> 
> Short and sweet and quite possibly not complete, but I didn't know what else to add. Also, I'm running out of chapters, so the next updates miiight take a while longer.


	7. Let me not outlive my own capacity to love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, some things are worth the sacrifice.

All things considered, Ben regrets that he will never be able to look back on this situation and appreciate the irony of making what may arguably be the stupidest decision he has ever made while being Gray Matter. Said decision being: _don’t dodge that lethal laser the bad guy is aiming at you._ It’s actually a very brilliant move but, unfortunately, it also has a fatal flaw—literally. Namely, it ends with him dead. Which is kind of the point, but he digresses.

Gray Matter is his smartest alien, his go-to guy for great, infallible plans. It just so happens that this great, infallible plan requires Ben 10 to die at the hands of a villain that, granted, has been a pain in the ass as of late, but is nothing compared to, say, Vilgax, or Malware. Really, Ben had been about to take him down when the Omnitrix oh-so-graciously decided to turn him into Gray Matter for his random alien transformation of the day, and what had been about to become a beat down with a witty quip at the end, became instead a vision, a window of opportunity that no other alien could have been able to notice.

(Distantly, Ben notes that this is the kind of shit Azmuth has to put up with on a regular basis; it’s not a nice thought.)

The path to the future, to a possibility stretches before his eyes in a fraction of a second. This future is: he dies, and it’ll be hard for the ones he’ll leave behind, they will suffer, for some it will be worse than others, but it’ll be for the best. The Plumbers will honor him, those who didn’t believe in his cause will admire his sacrifice, nonetheless; dying in the line of duty is one of those things people eat right up, turns even the worst people into what he has been trying to be half of his life. There will be a new, bright generation of hopeful Plumbers, of people across the universe who wish to usher a new era of peace, believing they can make a difference, no matter their age or origins.

Gwen will be among the ones who find it the most difficult, she is his dweeb of a cousin, after all, but she’ll grow stronger because of it; as cruel as it might be, her grief will be a chain that will keep Kevin by her side, on their side. Regardless of his past, of his possible future, he will not leave Gwen alone with her loss, which would be, at the very least, one major disaster in the making averted. Kevin might be misguided, but he would never be intentionally cruel, not like Ben can be for the greater good, in the name of being a hero.

His grandfather will understand, perhaps he will not approve, or perhaps he will resent him for it, but he will understand. His parents will never have to work again if they don’t want to, the life insurance he made sure to get before his first official mission will make sure of that. He wishes he could have been a better son, the kind of child his kind parents deserved to raise, but he’s just himself. He’ll always be ‘just’ himself.

Rook, like Gwen, will take it badly. Because at some point the line between partner and friend and a million other things (confidant, colleague, partner in crime, brother in arms, family in everything but blood) between the two of them became too blurred to classify, and because Ben knows he will inevitably blame himself. It’s a dumb thing to do, it’s also a very Rook thing to do. It’s one of the things that make it so easy to choose to stand his ground and take a lethal laser to the chest.

These people are important to him, for them it was worth giving up his humanity, fighting world-ending, universe-shattering threats; he doesn’t need to be Paradox to know the number of beings who deserve to be protected is huge, but Ben is just a boy who loves his family and the precious few friends he has managed to find and keep in his life, and that, ultimately, had known what was waiting for him at the end of the path that chose him, that he had chosen right back.

This version of himself might not get a happy ending within his time, but no hero was ever truly happy; he’s not a martyr, he’s simply choosing to go out in a blaze of glory that will continue to burn bright even in the dark days to come. Gray Matter is his smartest alien, but he’s still Ben ( _just_ Ben), and if his selfishness pays off, then he might as well take the chance.

He might as well take a step forward, and then another and another... the path that will bring the happy ending he somehow never managed to stop believing in is nothing but a long walk off a short cliff for him and he’s already halfway through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me die the moment my love dies.  
> Let me not outlive my own capacity to love.  
> Let me die still loving, and so, never die.  
> Mary Zimmerman, _Metamorphoses_ , “Baucis and Philemon”
> 
> Hi, guys. It's been a while and I'm very sorry, but also I haven't been super okay, so I really can't promise faster updates right now. 
> 
> Hopefully, things will get better. Take care.


	8. My broken arms heal themselves around you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rook is well aware that Ben has made enemies during his time as the wielder of the Omnitrix. Sometimes, he forgets he also made friends.

No one could blame Rook for going into his emergency-response mode when the voice from a thousand of his nightmares booms through his communicator before the break of dawn. And the voice from a thousand nightmares says:

“Rook, wake up! We’re going to be late for the peace Summit!”

Rook lurches forward still mostly asleep, half inside of his proto-armor, one of his hands coiled possessively around the handle of his proto-tool, and very confused.

“I thought we were told not to go to the Summit—”

“Well, yeah, but that doesn’t matter! Get ready!”

Rook disagrees, if only because the two of them had specifically been cordially invited to not attend the Summit, to stay away from the Summit and to not show their faces anywhere near the venue where the Summit was being held until it was over. It’s kind of a big deal, after all; nearly a hundred planets had agreed to discuss a galaxy-wide peace treaty and all of their representatives will be gathering on Earth. Are probably already gathered and waiting for the talks to start.

Magister Patelliday reminded him the day before to keep Ben busy and away; he might have repeated “away” six times.

It’s not even that they think Ben will cause problems; Ben has grown considerably at least in that respect not in the least because is a role that he’s constantly forced to play at the insistence of the Plumbers themselves given how well-known he is; it’s just that his presence there could very well be taken as a show of force, which is pretty much the last thing Earth wants. Neither the Omnitrix or Ben are weapons, but that doesn’t stop anyone from seeing them that way, and that bit of knowledge is what spurs Rook into getting ready, as per Ben’s demands, and driving towards the Summit. Not that he fools himself into thinking they’ll actually get there, but at least it’ll be easier to keep track of Ben if they are together.

As expected, the Plumbers have set a parameter specifically to intercept the two of them (mostly Ben, but by now it’s a given that they come as two-for-one deal) and they are turned away faster that Ben can hit the Omnitrix and ask for something—anything—that lets them sneak in.

They are stuck patrolling just outside the perimeter, although it would be more accurate to say that Rook is pretending to be patrolling while Ben sticks his hands and face against the Proto-truck window’s and looks like forlorn pet left outside in the pouring rain. It’s like being trapped in the most miserable merry-go-round ride this side of the galaxy.

His only consolation is that it could be worse—he could be in Magister Patelliday’s shoes, since has been tasked with playing keep away with them, only than in this version of the game the point is keeping Ben away from the Summit, which has resulted in Ben pretty much playing his own version of the family game ‘are we there yet?’ but with ‘can we go in _now_?’ and it’s driving Magister Patelliday crazy. Rook is willing to bet his favorite tool kit that the Magister will be asking for a vacation before the day ends.

And when finally, finally, six hours and three trips to Undertown later, they are allowed to let Ben run wild simply because the Summit is over, his human partner is off with a bang before Rook can so much as tell him to be careful or ask what they’re doing there.

Rook gives chase, obviously. It’s not like he’s going to let Ben cause an intergalactic incident on his watch, even if Ben is an intergalactic accident with a watch.

... which is a pretty good pun, actually; he’ll be sure to tell Ben that one. But he digresses.

Rook catches Ben by the arm in a practiced movement that he has been perfecting since their partnership started (he almost had a heart-attack the first time he had caught a running Ben by the arm, partly because he was convinced that Ben in his human form was at his most frail, and partly because he was sure that the horrible noise Ben’s arm had made meant that his increased strength had been enough to break something; and of course he had been proved wrong on all accounts, Ben just popped his joints and demanded chili fries and Magister Tennyson made them practice together until the two of them had a good idea of each other’s strength, but the memory of that single moment of panic had been enough to make him decide that it would never happen again); by now, Rook has the technique of stopping Ben down to an art.

Ben lets himself be stopped, but the damage is done, he realizes with a dawning, growing horror; he had already found his target. His whole face had brightened in the kind of infectious grin that Rook always found himself blaming whenever he succeeded in dragging Rook into the kind of shenanigans they both were sure to regret and the Plumbers were sure to at least mildly disapprove. It’s just that kind of grin. It has an orbit all of its own and Rook honestly cannot be blamed for being caught in it, although he is kind of resenting its pull at the moment. After all, Ben’s target has also seen him and is currently walking towards the two of them, no doubt pulled by the same grin.

Ben pulls off a wholly unfair move and somehow, somehow, lights _up_ even more, like a star suddenly going supernova and then _waves_ at the Highbreed Supreme who is ambling towards them.

There isn’t a contraction that can be used for the phrase ‘what the fuck’, but if there was, he thinks he might have thought it. Quite loudly.

It’s entirely possible, he supposes, that Ben might be forgetting that Revonnah had been one of the planets the Highbreed had attempted to destroy in their last war, when they were convinced that committing universal genocide was their only option. And Ben might be willing to forgive all that, but Rook doesn’t even know how to begin.

Not that it would matter, because as soon as the alien is within reach, Ben practically latches onto him before turning to Rook and introducing them, going from ‘Hey, this is my new partner Rook!’ to rattling off the complete title of his guest (Reinrassic III, Seventh Son of the Noble Highbreed House of Derazza, Direct Descendant of the Pure Blooded High Order of Rarsect), and then preening when the Highbreed nods, pleased. Like an owner appreciating a well-trained pet perform a trick.

Rooks frowns, has to bite his tongue and repress the sudden urge to growl or snarl or something else that would make his parents gasp in horror at his behavior, especially since the Highbreed turns to him and greets him in an excruciatingly polite way, before turning to Ben, who deems fit to approve of his greeting and gives him a thumbs-up, because clearly it’s going to be that kind of day.

The Highbreed (“I call him Reiny!”, says Ben, excited, and Rook knows, _knows_ , that trying to call the Highbreed Supreme with such familiarity would be a terrible idea, so he sticks to his title) nods at Ben, like his approval is a boon worth of recognition and Rook can already see where this is going.

And where they are going, which is Mr. Smoothy (which is quickly becoming the unofficial Tennyson after-party go-to place); it’s a good thing that they’re so well-known there, and that the owners are willing to put up with the eccentricities and occasional damages of property for the sake of one of their best customers. Distantly, he thinks some of the Plumbers will have a collective stroke when they find out where Ben decided to take the Highbreed Supreme in his capacity as unofficial Earth representative, even if it certainly won’t surprise them. Although the Higbreed doesn’t seem to be complaining; seems to be enjoying guzzling the smoothies after scaring off half of the other patrons and making Rook nearly choke because he _did not_ know Higbreed drank like _that_.

It’s a surprisingly painless experience, all things considered. Between the idle conversation, that at least Ben has the good sense to keep to safe topics with zero mentions of the Highbreed former attempts at genocide, and a shocking amount of smoothies, Rook discovers that it’s not difficult at all to socialize with the Highbreed Supreme. It’s like having lunch with the boogeyman from his childhood and discovering they’re infuriatingly nice. He’s still relieved when it’s time for him to go.

Predictably, Ben isn’t.

Also predictably, he’s trying not to show it, but, really, he can only stall the Highbreed’s departure for so long, even if the alien himself is perfectly content to let Ben prattle about anything and everything to his heart’s content while his ship is being prepared to depart. Eventually, though, the preparations are complete and Ben realizes that their time’s up, so he decides to deal with the sendoff like ripping a band-aid—he smiles.

“Man, it’s great that you guys decided to come to the Summit! It’s... It was good to see you, Reiny. I’m glad you’re doing well.”

That seems to give the alien pause; Rook has no way of reading his expressions, but he must be making one. Finally, the Highbreed settles on emitting a low, huffing sound

“Our presence at the Summit was a mere formality; we have made known that our loyalty lies with you, Ben-Ben Tennyson.”

He says it without any inflection; like it’s a fact, like it should be obvious.

And then, without care or thought of who might be watching, the Highbreed Supreme kneels down (on the dirt of this inferior planet, populated by even more inferior species, Rook thinks to himself) before Ben; and really, Rook would be more surprised if he wasn’t so thoroughly convinced that that’s just the effect Ben has on any lifeform with more than two functional brain cells.

Still, he pretends to be surprised, if nothing else for appearances’ sake.

The Highbreed takes one of Ben’s hands in his, the one that retains his original coloring, and he knows there’s a story there, but not one he was able to find in his usual resources (books, gossip, Ben’s file, Gwen and Kevin) and it doesn’t feel right to try to pry it from Ben himself. Regardless, the gesture holds some kind of meaning, it must, because Ben’s smile is a blinding thing polished off all his usual sharp edges.

“This past year, our race has been blessed with children for the first time in decades. Do you know how many are named after you, Ben-Ben Tennyson? Your name has become a symbol of hope for us. And so it shall remain, the debt we owe you is such.”

‘Forever’ goes unsaid, but Rook hears it all the same. Ben must too, because he shakes his head.

“You don’t owe me anything, Reiny. I mean it when I say I’m glad you guys are doing okay. Just keep taking care of them like you have, because one of these days I’m going to drop by to meet all the other Ben-Bens and I wanna see you all doing all right, okay?”

He smiles, smiles, smiles; there are no celestial bodies bright enough to make a fair comparison.

“Take care, Reiny,” he says, as a final blow, and Rook almost feels sorry for the Highbreed.

“Of course, Ben-Ben Tennyson. Until we meet again.”

The Highbreed leaves, but the ghost of his presence remains in his thoughts.

Rook is quite familiar with the term ‘hero-worship’ (after all, he used to suffer from a case of it himself), and while there are plenty of alien races, whole worlds even, that could be said to worship Ben as a hero, but the Highbreed are on a whole other level. They owe everything they are now and everything they can and will be to one entity alone, and that is Ben Tennyson.

They would fight for him, he can tell, just by watching the Highbreed Supreme. They would wage war against the entire universe for his sake, on his name, under his command, if he wanted them to; probably if they thought he would want them to. They very nearly won that battle the first time they tried, and that was fueled only by hopelessness, Rook really wouldn’t want to see what they could do fueled by righteous fury and adoration.

Still, he can’t help but think it’s a little reassuring, although it probably shouldn’t be. Every planet that sent representatives to the Summit is most likely aware of where the Highbreed have placed their allegiance; alone, Ben 10 and the Highbreed are forces to be reckoned with. Together, Rook is convinced they will be enough to persuade even the more recalcitrant dissenters.

It’s nearly horrifying how easily Ben can change the axis of the world; how unaware he is of the effect the mere idea of him has on the universe as a whole. It occurs to him how lucky they all are that it’s _Ben_.

It occurs to him that he’s the kind of thermodynamic miracle that makes it possible for the Highbreed to redeem themselves and for Rook to be willing to work with them, that makes it possible to hope for these impossible things to keep on happening.

It occurs to him that he’s not quite as over his hero-worship phase as he had thought, after all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Ben says goodbye with his heart feeling lighter than it has in a while.

This is one thing that Ben is proud of himself of doing; of course, he takes pride in all of his exploits as a hero, but befriending Reiny against all odds and in spite of everything, including Reiny himself, is something he did as Ben. Surviving that wasteland and messing with Reiny’s arm were something he owned the Omnitrix, but annoying Reiny to the point of tentative although reluctant beginnings of acceptance? That was Ben.

He’s so, so glad Reiny changed his mind.

He’s so, so glad that Reiny proved that the Highbreed could change, that they changed, that he didn’t have to let an entire race die.

Reiny looks at him and calls him hope, but Ben could just as easily say the same thing about him.

This is as good as it gets, this is a best possible outcome; it’s the kind of victories heroes could hardly dare to dream about. It’s the world, the galaxy, the universe and multiverse and every single living being there proving that despite the struggles and the strife and the ugliness of it all, Hope is always, always at the bottom of Pandora’s Box; and it’s worth fighting for, and clawing his way through the muck and the failures and all the bad days and bad endings.

Just this, this one thing. How could anyone not think it’s worth it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think  
> you think  
> I will never die, I think I exude  
> to you the permanence of smoke or stars,  
> even as  
> my broken arms heal themselves around you.  
> Galway Kinnell, “Little Sleep’s-Head Sprouting Hair in The Moonlight”
> 
> Just bury me under the ugliest tree you can find; this took me forever and a day and it's still a mess. It was supposed to be short, and fuffly! But no! Rook had to be drama queen this whole chapter, and then I forgot how to English, and then it ended up being bits and pieces held together by staples and prayers. 
> 
> But at least it's done, which makes me happy because Reiny is probably my favorite Alien Force character and I had to make him justice somehow, since he has, like, 15 minutes of screentime total and Omniverse deprived me of his existence.
> 
> (The "thermodynamic miracle" was, of course, taken from Alan Moore's Watchmen.)


	9. Stars in a wilderness of stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It’s no one’s fault, but somehow everyone blames themselves a little (and manages to drive Ben crazy about it).

Of course, it happened as most things do with Ben: with the Omnitrix, while fighting aliens (petty criminals who just happened to steal a very dangerous cargo, so of course they’d send him).

It’s the only logical conclusion to all those times the Omnitrix has timed out at the worst possible moment, only this time there had been no one around to handle the consequences. Well, no one but Rook, but that had been another problem entirely.

The thing is, the mission had been going so well: they had beaten the bad guys, they had secured the weapons the bad guys had stolen, and then, out of nowhere, the ship they had been in (the one that, thankfully, belonged to the bad guys) had simply made an odd noise and plummeted down, sending them spiraling to their deaths, to which Ben had responded with his, by now usual, cry of “anything that can fly!”, to which the Omnitrix had graciously responded with Astrodactyl; and then Ben had grabbed Rook and almost managed to get them both to safely land on the ground when the damned watch had timed out—still in mid-air. 

Thankfully, they weren’t that high up, but still; for all the aliens he could turn into, Ben’s human body carried all of its weaknesses. He had also been carrying Rook at the time, and there was no timely intervention as they plummeted down and ultimately met the ground with a rather unpleasant noise.

“Rook,” Ben had wheezed through gritted teeth, sounding uncharacteristically worried, “hey, you okay? You’re not hurt, are you?”

“No, I am fine. The Proto-armor absorbed most of the impact.”

Rook had picked himself up, winded and bruised in spite of his high-tech armor; he had turned to Ben, started to ask: “are you okay?” but didn’t quite get the words out. He saw why Ben had been so concerned, why his voice had sounded all wrong: his arm, the one without the Omnitrix on it, was bent unnaturally and while the bone hadn’t managed to pierce through the muscle and skin, the dark and angry bruise there made obvious what had happened. 

And Rook might still not have clocked enough field time to rival Ben, but he had accompanied the teen in plenty of missions (that, he realized, had been miraculously completed without any serious injury), so he was not at all proud of the fact that he sight of such non-life-threatening injury froze him on the spot. His mind going blank for a second because… this was Ben Tennyson, Ben Ten, and him getting hurt was an impossibility. That is simply not a thing that happens. 

(Or else, his mind supplied upon kick-starting, how many times could he have been hurt before, how many times could he have died? How many times did Rook almost let _that_ happen?) 

Ben, injured as he was, had to snap him out of it. 

“Quit looking at me like that, I’m not dying. Geez.” 

Certainly, he wasn’t dying, but that was the start of it all. 

This is how Rook blames himself: if he were a better partner, he would not have let Ben get hurt like that. He wouldn’t have relied on him as he did for bailing them out, he _would have—should have—could have—_  

Eventually Ben just kind of gives up on him, because he can only repeat ‘it wasn’t your fault!’ and ‘I forgive you!’ so many times before thinking the whole thing is getting ridiculous. He’s the one in the hospital, after all. He’d kind of trapped there until everyone is convinced that _really_ , he’s not actually dying, but also the doctors are having a field day running as many tests on him as they can (not at the expense of his parents, or else Ben would have never allowed it; would rather have let Driba and Blukic ‘fix’ his arm). 

Still, he lets Rook smuggle him smoothies because being useful makes him feel better and resigns himself to being a guinea pig for the time being. 

His parents are kind of a special case, as this may be one of the first times they get to see up close the dangers of the life their son chose. The hospital room, as it turns out, can be every bit as scary as an alien invasion. So they blame Ben’s own recklessness, Rook’s apparently lacking babysitting skills, Grandpa Max’s terrible influence, his weird watch, the criminal they apprehended, that day’s horoscope, the lady who tells the horoscopes on TV and who now they are convinced is an evil alien in disguise, each other’s side of the family, and half the alien population on Bellwood, but Ben doesn’t hold it against them, since parents are allowed to overreact like that. And, anyway, his mom is too angry to cook (negative emotions would _poison_ the food, she says, and Ben just nods his head enthusiastically and tells her that he loves her), so his dad feeds him as much junk food as he thinks he can get away with without the doctors having a fit. 

And then there’s Grandpa Max, who, somehow, manages to blame himself, for sending him on such a dangerous mission without enough information or more equipment or a back-up fleet, or... well, Ben stopped paying attention after that; and there’s also Azmuth, who doesn’t blame himself at all for the Omnitrix timing out; something that, like everything that goes wrong with the watch, is Ben’s fault. Which in turn only serves to make his Grandpa even more angry, which leads to him lashing out at the Plumbers so that they work harder and don’t have to depend on him for everything—which they don’t, but no one is willing to point that out to an enraged Magister Tennyson with a grandson in the hospital. Not even Mr. Patelliday, who brings Ben chili fries and keeps him updated on the ‘situation’. 

Mostly, Ben thinks his Grandpa is exaggerating, but the rest of the Plumbers are not much better. 

(There’s a rumor about someone writing him an elegy and then, out of the blue, every Plumber seems to be writing one. And then there’s a competition and Rook has to call Scout and assure him that no, Ben is not dead. Yet. 

If this keeps up, though, he just might have to fake his own death if only to make it stop.) 

_Because_ that’s when Gwen and Kevin decide to visit, which makes the ‘situation’ much, much worse. 

Hell, he didn’t know what exactly he had expected, but he must be lacking imagination in that department, because whatever he could have though hadn’t been nearly as awful as what actually happened. This is, of course, because Gwen anodite-slash-magic powers had, once upon a time, been the one thing that prevented or cushioned their falls; she made stairs to walk on air, bubbles of mana to float them out of danger, and barriers to shield them from harm. And she was good at keeping them safe (and back then his Omnitrix hadn’t given him as much trouble as this new one does), so she takes it especially hard. 

So, following the familiar trend, Gwen blames herself. How or why she does that, Ben doesn’t know. And of course she also sees fit to apologize for ‘not being there’, for something that is in no way her fault; it’s no one’s fault, dammit. 

But okay, Ben is getting the hang of more or less interjecting ‘it’s okay’ and ‘it’s not your fault’ at least once every two sentences and does his best to make her feel better, even though he’s the one not allowed to go on patrol until his Grandpa deems it safe enough and which, at the rate things are going, could be in a year or ten, give or take. 

He, however, draws the line upon hearing Gwen suggest changing schools to come back to Bellwood. To Ben. 

Which is easily the stupidest thing he has heard all _year_ (not an easy feat, considering some of the villains he’s had to deal with; I’m looking at _you,_ Vreedle brothers). Fortunately, Kevin takes pity on him and tells him he’ll talk with Gwen. The fact that Kevin of all people is acting as the sole sane person around him speaks of how utterly bizarre his week has been so far. Which says a lot, considering that Kevin also bought one of those 24 color markers packs and is planning on abusing his poor cast with all of them. 

Even the hot pink one. _Especially_ the hot pink one. 

But whatever, Kevin is taking it remarkably well compared to pretty much everyone else. 

In the end, he leaves his markers in Ben’s room, right there where everyone can see them and, forget his cast, his mom is going to kill him for ruining the sheets with doodles, and _damn it, Argit_ , did he really have to draw his face on the pillow Ben sleeps with? 

Between smuggled smoothies and chocolate he’s really not supposed to be eating, Ben promises himself that he’ll never break a bone again in his life. 

He also promises himself that he’s never going to let anyone live this down. Ever. 

_Ever_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I reach out and flick out the light.  
> Darkly I touch his fragile scars,  
> So far away, so delicate,  
> Stars in a wilderness of stars.  
> James Wright, “With the Shell of a Hermit Crab”
> 
> I kind of get the feeling this chapter feels a little rushed, and I'm only 60% sure that it's somehow intentional. I think. I'm pretty sure there's nothing accurate about hospitals here, but I'm not even going to bother with that because I don't particularly like hospitals, so there.
> 
> Also! Important question: are you guys up for some shippy stuff or would you prefer to keep this story in the platonic realm? (The shippy stuff would be published separatedly then.)

**Author's Note:**

> Boy, I sure wish I could justify the existence of this project with something a little more substantial than "it seemed like a good idea at the time", but here we are. I finally scavenged this from the dead sea of my WIPs. 
> 
> Also, I have no beta, so please, please, let me know if you find something wrong.


End file.
